Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny brought the whip-toting, fedora-wearing, artifact-hunting Hollywood hero back to the big screen for the first time since 2008. But did you know that the movie's storyline is inspired by a real-life ancient artifact?

Discover the haunted history of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, from ghostly sightings of Marilyn Monroe to eerie encounters with Montgomery Clift. Explore the supernatural side of Hollywood's most iconic landmark.

L.A. Noire was an incredibly detailed video game, released by the people who brought you Grand Theft Auto featuring an extremely realistic open world map of Los Angeles as it was in 1947. Our Los Angeles tour writer, Scott Markus decided to venture to several real-life haunted locations in the world of the video game and share some of The City of Angels' best ghost stories in this virtual tour of 1947 LA and its most haunted spots!

The Tormented Existence of Elizabeth Short Elizabeth Short, infamously known as The Black Dahlia, was a woman whose life was marred with tragedy and despair. Born in Boston in 1924, she tasted the bitterness of heartbreak early on when her father committed suicide after losing his business in the Great Depression, leaving her mother to shoulder the burden of raising Betty and her siblings.  In her teen years, Betty was plagued by severe bronchitis and asthma, conditions so debilitating that they required a lung surgery. Then in 1942, Short’s life was once again turned upside down when her mother received a letter from her supposedly deceased father. He wasn’t dead after all but had instead chosen to abandon his family and start a new life in California. A Harrowing Journey to California When Betty turns 18 she moves out to the West Coast to join her father’s new life, but once she leaves home, bad luck seems to follow right behind. She moves out of her father’s home just a few weeks after moving in because of their constant fighting. You can imagine there’s some tension there between the young woman and the father who pretended to die so he didn’t have to raise her. Once she leaves him, she gets a job at Camp Cooke, now Vandenberg Air Force Base. There she soon meets an officer and moves in with him. But that doesn’t last and before too long she moves out, claiming he abused her. Right after leaving him, she gets arrested in Santa Barbara for underage drinking and then escapes to Miami, Florida. Things seem to be looking up for her there when she meets another Air Force officer and this one proposes to her.

The World's Shortest Railway A funicular, also known as an inclined railway or cliff railway, is a cable railway in which a cable attached to a pair of passenger vehicles moves them up and down a steep slope. The vehicles are specially designed to remain horizontal, despite the incline, ensuring passenger comfort. The operation of a funicular relies on the principle of counterbalancing. The two cars are connected by a cable, which runs through a pulley at the upper end of the track. As one car goes up, the other comes down, and vice versa, with the weight of the descending car helping to pull the ascending car up the slope. This means that the engine at the top only needs to compensate for the difference in weight between the two cars and passengers, making the system more energy efficient than other types of transit systems. Funiculars are used in various parts of the world to transport people along steep hillsides, including urban settings and tourist locations. They have been particularly useful in mountainous regions and in cities built on steep hills. Opens New Year's Eve 1901 The history of the Angels Flight funicular railway in Los Angeles dates back to New Year's Eve 1901, when it was inaugurated to provide transportation for the residents of the Bunker Hill neighborhood. Colonel James Ward Eddy was a Civil War hero and a friend of President Abraham Lincoln. He lived in downtown Los Angeles with his teenage grandson. Noticing the difficulty of climbing Bunker Hill, he brought the idea of Angels Flight to L.A. Eddy was an entrepreneur who had practiced many professions, including railroad construction and engineering. In May 1901, he was granted permission by the city to build the railway, which was completed by the end of the year. Eddy also built a 100-foot tower behind the Olive Street railway terminal, called Angels Rest, to attract tourists to Bunker Hill. And the plan worked. In its first 50 years, Angels Flight carried over 100,000,000 passengers on its two cars, Olivet and Sinai (named after the Biblical mountains). These millions took the 315-feet journey for just a penny and Angels Flight became the railway with the most passengers per mile in the world. Its charm and uniqueness have been featured in movies as early as Fatty Arbuckle's 1918 silent comedy "Goodnight Nurse" and as recently as 2016's Best Picture winner "La La Land". It seems that detective fiction in particular loves to get hard boiled at Angels Flight. Raymond Chandler's hard-drinking private dick Phillip Marlowe (of "The Big Sleep" fame) visits it in the book, "The High Window". It features in the first movie that showcases Mickey Spillane's two-fisted private eye Mike Hammer in 1955's "Kiss Me Deadly". Michael Connelly's no-nonsense Hollywood Homicide cop, Harry Bosch was there in his 6th book, named "Angels Flight" after the funicular, as well as Season 4 of the TV show that bears his name. It's a mysterious murder on the "world's shortest railway" that gets the whole thing started. And America's most famous fictional criminal defense lawyer Perry Mason has been there at least twice, once in 1966 for the classic series (the only episode shot in color) and again in the 2021 HBO series.

A Spirited Visit to the Golden Gopher  In the depths of the eternal twilight, the Golden Gopher stands, a legendary oasis of spirits both bottled and spectral. The very air within the establishment hums with an energy from another realm. Constructed in 1905, this legendary establishment was once owned by none other than U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt.

Join us in exploring the vibrant traditions of the Day of the Dead, or Día de los Muertos, a celebration of the departed widely observed in Mexico and Latin America that is a fusion of cultures.

Trigger Objects and Hauntings Paranormal trigger objects are a fascinating subject that has been discussed for many years in the paranormal community. These objects are believed to have the ability to elicit supernatural activity and are said to have a strong emotional or historical connection to a particular person or event. Many people believe that these objects can attract spirits or entities related to that person or event, and that they can be used to communicate with the dead. Examples of alleged trigger objects include personal items like jewelry or clothing, or items associated with traumatic events like weapons or toys. When you combine a trigger object with a location where haunted history has happened, you just might get a recipe to stir up some ghostly fun. That’s why the Medieval Torture Museums in Los Angeles and Chicago are so perfect to look for a number of different types of paranormal phenomena. These buildings are connections to the fascinating pasts of the city and now you can explore these buildings as well as join us for a haunted history tour for one low price.  Both museums are in historic buildings that have a real connection to the city, so let’s talk about how some of the terrifying trigger objects at the torture museum could connect to real life haunted stories…